AuthorTopic: Regular network dropout. (Read 7229 times)

I have several DCS3716 located around our factory. Some of these are used for a live view of mechanical processes.

I am connecting these cameras on a Debian host running VLC on an RTP protocol. The local switch is a HP J9562A.

There are frequent and recurring drop outs from the cameras that are causing freeze screens or black screens on the output client. VLC is set to reconnect a dropped connection and performs fine in test situations, but not in the real world. Having frequent complaints about having to restart VLC to resume the feed.

Here's a network monitor graph of what's happening

over 2 days

and you can see clearly over 2 hours, of an individual incident

As you can see the network isn't dropping completely (which would actually be preferable), but just enough to ruin the connection with the viewer.

There is no router involved, it's purely on a local network. The switch is fine also, I can see that with my monitoring application. The wiring is fine too, it was end to end tested on installation. It stands to reason that it would be highly unlikely to be 4 sets of bad wiring that are causing the same issue, with the same frequency, at the same time. (which could also indicate a switch fault, but no.) The signal drop is occurring at different times on the different cameras but with the same interval. This also rules out the host NIC.

The graphs I posted are the signal from a single camera's tcp/ip connection with VLC.

There is some underlying issue/setting/configuration/something with the cameras or VLC I am not aware of.

I would think that if the if the power to the cams was dropping out sufficiently to interrupt the signal it would also crash the camera, and that all the cameras would be doing this at the same time. But it's not simultaneous. If I shut down a camera and then restart it the pattern starts again from that point in time. In testing now I have two cameras like this dropping simultaneously and another two at completely different times.